


red red red

by riverbed



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Painting, Stress Relief, lovey-dovey stuff, messy sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 13:38:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6197149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A painting ends at the edges of the canvas, unless the canvas is your lover, in which case - John supposes it never ends, not really. Maybe he has begun to understand Alexander’s frustration, the constant tweaking that goes into accurately reflecting the subject’s full potential, ever-changing as it is. What happens when a person is the muse, the subject, the medium, and the foundation?"</p><p>what's a pretty picture to a poet?</p><p>it's a lot, actually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red red red

**Author's Note:**

> *cartwheels in stage left*  
> ..........hey

Alexander finds Laurens in their tent, manic with a brush in hand. John doesn’t hear him come in, so he perches on a chair near the entrance, watching him work.

He paints his frustrations on a portion of the tent’s wall - risky, even in Washington’s good graces, but Alexander thinks he does not care, thinks that maybe he is even doing it out of spite. The orders they had received had not sat well with John. _Stay, can’t spare you, you will not fight this battle_ sting as they echo through Alex’s head, too, but John is _fuming._ Energy bleeds easily through the expensive brush, held with practically his whole hand instead of delicately between his thumb and first two fingers. There’s no detail, only broad streaks of anger, intense and nearly horrifying.

Color is a good indicator of John’s mood. When sated, he tends to paint in the colors of South Carolina - the soft grays and blues of the water, bright grass-green, mauve like the open sunset. HIs palette now is twenty different shades of red and orange, representations of fire, of rage. There is no serenity, no calm wash of pigment fading into the next. John’s hand is smudged copper up to his forearm. If Alexander didn’t have the whole context, he’d assume it was blood.

He crosses the room as quietly as possible, coming up behind John to lay his hands gently on his hips. Laurens starts but doesn’t turn - he knows from the weight of the touch that it is Alexander’s, knows the feel of his body behind him. He smashes his paintbrush against the palette, coming away with too much paint, and hurls it at the fabric, barely actually touching it with the bristles, leaving an angry line of scarlet.

“I should let you be,” Alex says, but even as he does he’s nuzzling against the back of Laurens’ neck. Laurens doesn’t answer, but he does reach out with his free hand to thumb at the stark edge between one red and another, pulling one of the still-wet colors into the other. A compromise. Alexander watches the ease with which the beige of the tent surrenders to John’s manipulation, the tint it takes on with only a flourish of his hand. He could never paint something so easily, could never impress his will upon a thing so confidently. John is teaching him - sometimes John pushes a brush into his hand, guides him by the wrist as they paint together. It’s a taste of the upbringing Alexander never had - money, sureness, fearlessness. Laurens grew up self-reliant, sure in his abilities. Alexander was taught doubt and heartbreak, stubbornness just a front in the setbacks.

He does feel like maybe he is painting John, sometimes, filling in his blank spaces with pieces of himself. He often wonders if it’s John’s kindness and generosity that lets him do that, then catches himself as performing the habit of doubt he’s tried to break and grants himself permission to keep drawing circles on Laurens’ skin.

John shifts, and Alexander realizes he’s dropped the brush on the palette and is reaching his other arm - the one he had reached out to blend with - back to put his hand in Hamilton’s hair. It’s late summer and Alex’s body is warm from being out in the August heat, and John wiggles back into him, fitting their hips together. Alexander sighs, rests his head on John’s shoulder and surveys his work. “I like it.”

John scoffs. “It’s nothing.” It isn’t - it’s lines. He knows Alex isn’t lying.

“It’s real,” Alexander says, blowing a strand of hair that has come loose from John’s braid from behind his ear to the front of it. Laurens feels some of the lingering anger fizzling out, like maybe Hamilton is absorbing some of it for him with his body heat. His arm is still bent at the elbow and his fingers are carded through the strands of Alex’s sun-warm hair. He can feel the beads of sweat on his neck and the - _shit,_ the paint. He recoils with such force that Alexander steps back completely, and John berates himself again for scaring him. He turns to face Alexander. “No, stay, I just -” he holds his stained palms up in explanation, smiling sheepishly. “I’m so sorry.”

To his surprise, Alexander doesn’t grimace. In fact, he smiles - but it’s unmatched to John’s own nervous one. This is one of Hamilton’s dangerous smiles, one with seedling ideas being watered underneath. It slowly breaks through his lips into a grin, nearly lascivious. Alexander unbuttons his shirt, tugs it back off his shoulders, staring John down the whole time. “Blank canvas,” he says simply, and the notion hits John like a brick - heavy, sudden, and leaving him dizzy in its wake. He shakes his head in spite of himself, dodging Alex’s gaze to examine his lacking palette. “You’re not suited for red,” he says mournfully.

Hamilton advances on him. “What colors would you put me in?” He takes the palette from him, takes John’s brush hand and presses a kiss to the crimson-stained knuckles. He comes away with his mouth rouged. John recalls the sketches he’s done of Alexander while he sleeps, or while he furrows his brow while reading - imagines washing the pages with lavender and mint and sometimes bright yellow, colors of light and flowers. Never anything so garish as this - he reaches up and brushes his only clean fingers against the paint, drying tacky on Hamilton’s lips. 

“Not these,” he tells him quietly, tracing his collarbone with his whole hand now, painting light strokes without a brush.

“They’ll wash away,” Alexander counters, even as John presses into the indent between his clavicles with his thumb, smudging cherry-red there. He groans at the pressure, pressing up into John and John gasps at the friction made by Alexander’s insistent hips, turns him round to shove him up against the wall of the tent just next to the painting. He growls, feeling some of his furious energy come back but changed, as if Alex had taken it and milled it into something more focused, then handed it back for him to wield. His head is tilted back and John takes the opportunity to lick up the side Alexander’s neck, biting at his earlobe before pulling back a bit. “You forget how forceful I get when I’m angry,” he reminds him, and Alexander shivers beneath him.

“Didn’t - forget,” he pants, eyes wide. “God - John, touch me,” and he shifts, wiggling to encourage Laurens closer to him. John does get closer, shoving his leg between Alex’s, pinning him to the wall. Alex ruts against his thigh. John nips at his neck where he’d just painted, well aware they are making a mess - he sucks a bruise there anyway, relishing Alexander’s every whimper and whine as it gets to be too much. John’s own shirt is going to be ruined, cream cotton soaked through with steadfast pigment, and he doesn’t care, but he does want to feel his hot skin on Alexander’s, so he lets him remove it, his fingers fumbling at the buttons. John’s mind goes a little hazy as Hamilton’s hands go to his groin, and he swims in it - _blue, the sea_ , something in him insists. It’s pleasant. Alexander’s fingers are deft and practiced and they get him out of his breeches swiftly, palming his half-hard cock and ghosting a fingernail against the head. John gasps, bucks, his hips eager. He’s unbridled, coming a little undone as he gets harder under Alexander’s attention.

Hamilton’s still shifting against his thigh, trying to find a proper angle, and John composes himself enough to pull back, dropping him a couple inches where he’d been up on his toes. Alexander looks dejected. He tries to follow John as he steps backward but John reaches out, puts a hand in Alex’s hair and pulls _hard_ , and Alex stops short in his tracks.

“You want to be my work of art,” he says. It’s not a question, but a statement. Alexander nods slowly, staring, his lips parted in debauched shock. “Get down here,” John says, and pulls Alexander by the hair to lay on the floor. He winces but complies, lying on his back, his shoulders glowing in the insubstantial lamplight. John surveys his bare chest, then, satisfied, turns to fetch another palette from his trunk, a few oils. He mixes blue and white with a fresh brush until it makes a frothy teal, and pours black directly onto another, larger one. This he holds, setting the board aside for the time being as he gets down to straddle Alex’s waist.

“Night sky,” he says to Alexander through a smirk, brushing big swathes of pure, inky black onto his abdomen just below his chest. Just a six-inch vertical expanse, but infinite as he stares at it, feels lulled into its consumption just as he does when he looks at the sky outside. He takes one of Alexander’s own fingers and squeezes white on its own onto it, guides his hand until the finger hovers above his own stomach. “Press down, light - that’s it,” he tells him. “My stars.” He smiles as he continues dotting the background with tiny flecks of bright white using Alex’s hand as a tool. They contrast nicely - and the oil is not opaque, lending the natural tint of Alexander’s warm skintone to the shading.

The paint will not dry for some time. John intends to make use of it. He smears some pure green on his own hand and trails his fingers in a sprawl along Alex’s collar and shoulder, over the earlier lines of red. Alex looks up at him questioningly. “You always smell like seaweed,” he offers, and Alexander huffs out an appreciative laugh. John continues, picking up the brush he’d mixed the light blue on. He swirls it around the green, conservative with the blue so as to give the tendrils of deep green depth and context. “Always next to the water, Alexander. My anchor in the ocean.” He looks at Alexander meaningfully, and notes that he looks as though he’s lost for words, jarred by the raw vulnerability of John’s own statement. John is all right with the silence, he decides, as he works the paint into the side of Alexander’s neck, careful of his hairline.

Laurens pulls back to get a wider perspective. “Beautiful,” he says, though he’s speaking more of the whole picture than his own work on it, and he hopes it sinks in. He thinks Alexander gets it though he still seems to be reeling from before, and John doesn’t have any more time to consider it because he inadvertently adjusts his hips and groans, his bare groin as desperate for attention as it had been before he’d started this. His cock slides against Alexander’s belly and Alexander smiles at him, sweet, open. John leans over him and dives into the crook of the opposite side of his neck from the painting, laying sloppy kisses there. He feels the thin paint rub from Alexander’s skin onto his own, the wet slide of it as they shift against one another. This will be absolute hell to clean, and neither of them care, rushing heedlessly into each other’s comfort as they always do.

“John - I-” Alexander is panting again, tilting his head every few seconds to tempt John to a certain spot on his neck, thrashing a little under him, rocking his hips to get friction against John’s own. He’s fully hard in his breeches, sweat and John’s own leaking need soaking the grind of his cock against the fabric of Hamilton’s pants.

“I need you, got to have you,” John sighs. He’s no longer concerned with the game he’d started, the roughness, the work he normally likes to make Alexander do. Nothing in him is tempted toward the dark, now; only the blinding brightness of Alex’s smile and the warmth of his body interests him. The colors are sliding all over them and as he unlaces Alexander’s breeches he stains them with mixed pigment that will likely never wash out. He yanks them down his hips and throws them across the tent, then does the same with his own.

Nude, their bodies lock together as if magnetized. Alex slips his arm around John’s neck, pulling him in for an open-mouthed kiss. Laurens dips two fingers into Alexander’s entrance. The paint is not as slick as he would have hoped for the mess, so he works Alexander open at a pace he knows is agonizingly slow, feeling him unwind gradually below him, swallowing his moans. He adds a third finger and presses up into his body, and is rewarded by Alex pulling away to gasp for breath and arch _hard._ “You… _John,”_ he says simply. John remarks internally that neither of them have completed a sentence for about twenty minutes. He pulls his hand away, lines himself up with Alexander’s entrance, pressing slowly but steadily against him until he’s sheathed in his heat. Alexander emits a low, drawn-out groan from the first breach until John is fully in, letting his knees fall open and his head loll back.

John breathes through the urge to move right away, letting Alexander wait, and only starts thrusting when he begins to squirm. Alexander starts babbling almost immediately, epithets of praise and love and affection pouring out of him unbidden. “I love -” John thrusts at a new angle, making him gasp - “watching you angry, watching you get - _ah_ -” John holds himself at full depth and rolls his hips - “get all worked up. I think of you holding me down - _oh,_ just like _that,_ John, _yes_ \- like this, hold me down and take it out on me, so good, I need it so bad, John, _please.”_

John can’t really think but he knows he needs to indulge this. “Yeah? Need it, Alexander? You need this.” Not a question, but a statement.

 _“Yeah,”_ Alexander echoes, his body vying up of its own accord. He lets John bruise his hips with the force with which he holds them, and he hasn’t asked to be touched yet. John reaches for his cock but apparently Alexander has the presence of mind to bat it away. “I want to - _ah_ \- wanna come without it. Just have - you,” he says, and it’s not very explanatory but John thinks he knows what he’s getting at.

And how enchanting it is to watch Alexander revel in the feeling of being filled and only that. John watches rapt as he experiments with techniques, examining the reaction each draws from Alexander. Angling this way makes him shudder, as if it’s too much; twisting that way makes him moan and roll his shoulders back like it’s shaken something loose inside him, relaxed a group of muscles he hadn't realized were tense. Hamilton’s eyes are screwed shut with concentration and his fists are balled tight at his sides, but John wants them on him. He picks one up and places it on his own side. Alexander catches on straight away and traces patterns on the skin, rubbing his hand up and down.

 _Anchor in the ocean,_ that voice from before shouts, and John loses himself in the patterns of Alexander’s light fingertips, the rough drag and tightness of his body, the way his eyes are heavy-lidded but open now, staring up at him like he’s the only thing in the world. All there is is this, the two of them as one, and Alexander’s cock jumps suddenly and as he comes he bears down on John, impossibly tight and hot, and John follows only seconds behind, sighing as he makes a few final, aborted, unfocused movements, his body undecided as to where it wants to squirm.

Alexander is staring at him rather more quizzically than he’d hoped when he comes to. John knows he still can’t really string words together; he has no illusions about his mental faculties in this moment of bliss. He also knows Alexander’s mind won’t turn off even when he wants it to - the man has no outlet, nothing that does what painting does for John, for example. Writing is relief but only to a point, only to the point where he’s written too much and then he has to elaborate - it’s endless. A painting ends at the edges of the canvas, unless the canvas is your lover, in which case - John supposes it never ends, not really. Maybe he has begun to understand Alexander’s frustration, the constant tweaking that goes into accurately reflecting the subject’s full potential, ever-changing as it is. What happens when a person is the muse, the subject, the medium, and the foundation?

Alexander narrows his eyes at him. “This was irresponsible,” he accuses, wincing as he trails his own hand down his belly and drags through the sticky mix of come and paint.

Laurens bats him on the head with his palm as he comes to settle down next to him. “It was your idea, you absolute fool.” The whole room smells like linseed but he can still pick up the sea salt that Alexander basically wears like cologne, layered over his sweat. He settles against the unpainted side of his neck, sighing into him.

Alexander wiggles, restless. John holds him tight, pretending not to notice. Alexander sighs. “Did it help, at least?” he asks. John yawns, resting his head against him.

“Yes, Alexander. God, you always help me. Even when I don’t know I need it, you’re always there.” Alexander is quiet, perfectly still. Then he turns, presses a chaste kiss to John’s cheek. “I love you.” He seems to have to force it out, barely above a whisper, but it’s so loud in John’s ear, the only thing he can imagine ever hearing. It washes over him and he drifts in it like a welcome wave.

“I love you, Alexander,” he returns, and decides they can hide in their tent until late tomorrow, sneak out to get water to wash with once everybody’s left, since Washington doesn’t want them on the battlefield anyway. They can be together out of spite.

Isn’t that what art is?


End file.
